


Now is the Very Hour of Love

by damaskrose



Category: Twelfth Night - Shakespeare
Genre: Antonio Deserves Better, Bisexuality, Class Differences, Declarations Of Love, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Gay Character, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Viola | Cesario, Historical References, M/M, Multi, Orsino has rights after all maybe?, Other, Pirates, Post-Canon, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Weddings, bisexual Olivia, gratuitous icarus metaphors, not really any historical homphobia/transphobia though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:33:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27946076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damaskrose/pseuds/damaskrose
Summary: “Antonio the dread sea wolf, a simple sailor now? Has love made you an honest man?”He chuckles darkly. “Love has made me nothing but a fool.”Or: Orsino's servant Valentine hears of the plight of a certain gay pirate and decides to play Cupid a little bit. (Set after the events of the play.)
Relationships: Antonio/Sebastian (Twelfth Night), Curio/Valentine (Twelfth Night), Olivia/Viola | Cesario (Twelfth Night), Orsino/Viola | Cesario (Twelfth Night)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	Now is the Very Hour of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: I wrote this for an actual Shakespeare class assignment. Queer happy endings for the win!

“As you know / What great ones do, the less will prattle of.” –Captain,  _ Twelfth Night _ 1\. 2.32-33

“If you will not murder me for my love, let me be / your servant.” –Antonio,  _ Twelfth Night _ , 2.2.50-51

I wait until midnight to make my escape. Orsino may own this estate, but I know every inch well enough to steal through these darkened halls with only the faint moonlight filtered through the windows for guidance. Curio snores across the hall as I slip my boots into my hands, wary of every footstep I take through the servant’s quarters. Curio may be a sound sleeper, but Klaudia the cook and Pavli the scullery boy could wake at any careless movement.

Cesario, too, was a light sleeper, and Curio always complained to me of his tossing and turning all night long. But his cot in the corner of their shared room is empty now, Viola left to reclaim her rightful place in Orsino’s bed. I wonder if she stirs just as restlessly now, tangling the fine silk sheets and keeping the duke awake with her sleeping mutters.

I arrive at the servant’s entrance with no one the wiser and slide the door open slowly, heeding the perpetually rusty hinges. The night air is a cool relief from my cramped little room as I slip my boots on and lace them, more by touch than by sight. The lantern I stashed in the bush by the door has not been disturbed and I strike a match and hold it to the wick. The lantern flickers to life and I shield its light with a fold of my cloak, hurrying across the darkened gardens in case anyone should catch sight of its bobbing light and wonder who is out and about at such an unholy hour.

I reach the treeline at the back of the garden and drop my cloak away from the lantern, letting the golden glow illuminate the forest path. Without moonlight to guide me, I step carefully to avoid the tangles of roots and briars. No matter how many times I traverse this path at the midnight hour, there always seems to be some unfamiliar rock or root to trip me up. 

It’s a relief when I reach the end of the path and reemerge into the moonlight at the head of the cliffs. The half-moon above lights the limestone up blinding white and glimmers on the crests of the waves below. I clamber down the narrow cliff path, lantern swinging wildly and my heart leaping into my throat every time the rocks skid beneath my feet. The ocean below is a hundred lapping black tongues, eager for me to lose my footing and plunge into their depths, but I reach the thin spit of gravel that passes for a beach without note. I’ve been climbing these cliffs since I was a child–it’d take more for a calm, moonlit night to make me lose my footing. 

The sea cave gapes behind me, a black gash in the white expanse of limestone cliffs. The coast of Illyria is littered with such caves, wet mouths sucking sea water in at high tide and expelling tangles of seaweed when the ocean recedes. I must have spent half my summers as a child clambering around their wet depths, skinning my knees on barnacles and always keeping one eye on the incoming tide lest I be trapped and drowned as a cautionary tale.

But I know no children spent their summers exploring this cave. This one has no white-sand beach spread out before it or easy path for descent. Village stories when I was a child say it was a hideout for pirates, where they hid their legendary stores of gold and dodged the ducal navy. 

There’s no pirates here now, and no gold either, but those dodging the law still find reasons aplenty to make their way to this cave. 

A skiff is already pulled up on the beach, oars resting inside. Good. They’re already here. 

Torchlight flares in the depths of the sea cave as I pick my way across the shale and gravel. As I ready myself to step into the depths of the cave, a shadow blocks my view.

“The fox is in the field,” a voice intones from the dark.

“And the hound is in the kennel,” I reply. The shadow steps aside, torchlight from the cave illuminating the tall man guarding the entrance.

“Valentine,” he says as I step through. “You made it.”

“Mehmed,” I reply. “Of course I did. No one knows these cliffs better than me.” 

“Let’s see what we have for you tonight,” he says, following me into the torchlit belly of the cave. Mehmed was a spice merchant, once, in his more reputable days. But these days his work is anything but reputable–deals conducted in smuggler’s caves and dark corners away from the heavy hands of the tax collectors. He brings spices and silk, rum and brandy, that will be unloaded and sold off all along the coast. 

But I have never come for the goods. I come to hear the stories brought in with his barrels and boxes, passed from ear to ear until they reach Orsino’s dukedom, stories of the caravans the Far East and the corsair pirates of the Barbary coast, of African kings across the sea and the English sailors far from home. 

Mehmed’s goods are still wrapped in sealskin against the cave’s damp, ready for his contacts in Illyria to disperse them throughout the coastal villages. He raps a hand on one crate. “Spices. Cinnamon and cardamom straight from Arabia.” 

A man hunched in the corner over a barrel looks up at my entrance. I expect some query about my purpose here from him and begin to prepare an answer, but as the flickering torch light illuminates his face, I freeze. 

I know this man. I hardly know him well, but the last time I saw him, he was being escorted away in chains by Orsino’s duke. 

Antonio the sea wolf, a notorious pirate if there ever was one and sworn enemy of the duke. 

“Who’s this, then?” he asks Mehmed, seemingly oblivious to my frozen confusion.

“Valentine, one of Duke Orsino’s men,” Mehmed says just as I open my mouth to give my own answer, one that would ideally have nothing to do with the man who had a pair of manacles clapped onto Antonio. “He’s a trustworthy one, do not fear,” Mehmed offers cheerfully, sensing the tension. 

Antonio drops the knife he was using to pry open a barrel and leans forward, no less threatening for the lack of a blade in his hand. “Orsino’s man?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice a thin thread in the moist air of the cave. 

I suppose I should have anticipated this–that monthly visits to a smuggler’s cave could never end well. But I’d rather hoped this evening wouldn’t end with my throat slit and body left for the tide. 

But instead, Antonio sits back, flicks his hand carelessly. “I hold no grudge against a man of Orsino’s. It was nothing but my own foolishness that sent me back to the land of my enemy.” 

“I–oh.” I realize I’ve been clutching the handle of my lantern tight with both hands, and loosen my grip. “Then you were freed?” 

“By the grace of his good duke, with heavy warning never to return and to set my life on an honest course.” 

I refrain from pointing out the obvious–that smuggling would hardly be considered an honest course–and ask instead “What brings you back to Illyria?”

Antonio retrieves his knife and busies himself again prying open the barrel. “Valentine,” he says, ignoring my question. That’s an interesting name. A martyr for love?”

“A martyr for matrimony, Roman in origin. My mother had a flair for the romantic.” Damp is seeping through the soles of my boots and I shift awkwardly. Behind me, Mehmed is similarly inspecting his cargo for water damage. 

“Your mother the romantic, not she? Do you not think to die for love would be a wonderful thing?” His eyes are grimly black in the torchlight.

“I would rather live a bachelor than die a lover, my lord. Though I should think it is quite possible to find both love and life, as much of human civilization has proved.”

Antonio laughs bitterly “I am no more a lord than you, Valentine. I have returned to Illyria because I am…Roman in my own way.” He clears his throat light. “In…certain preferences. And I wish to know how Lord Sebastian fares.” Antonio doesn’t look up, intent on his work. Too intent for simply a waterlogged barrel in a smuggler’s cave. 

The meaning of his words sinks in. “Ah. You two were–”

He violently pries at a nail with his knife. “Close. I rescued him from storm-tossed waves, nursed him back to health, guarded him for three months, Loved him and thought he could return the same. Or so I thought, until he jumped at a noblewoman’s offer of marriage and left me to languish in Orsino’s prison.” 

“And so you return for news of the lord?” 

Antonio sets his knife down. “The hare flees into the trap once again.” 

“I come for stories of the world from Mehmed, but I could exchange you news of Illyria,” I offer.

Antonio says nothing, but settles back expectantly.

I clear my throat, rifling through my knowledge of Olivia’s household. “I see Lady Olivia and her new husband little, belonging to another household as they are. Though the wedding date of Viola and Orsino nears to unite the two families and I expect we shall mingle frequently after that.” 

Antonio nods, expressionless.

“Lady Olivia’s head steward has been turned out in shame for his courtship of her,” I continue. “A most surprising turn of events.”

Antonio scoffs. “How so? It is no surprise that a steward could not marry his lady. Their worlds are as different as the land and sea.” 

“And yet you dub me the cynic. Do you not think love could inspire one to reach beyond his stature?”

“Aye, to reach, and to fall like Icarus beneath the sun.” Antonio folds his arms tight as if against attack. 

“I see. You would die for love, but have no hope for its return?” The lantern in my hands gutters, casting Antonio’s face in gold and shadow. 

“My own history has shown incompatibility to vanquish any chance of love.” 

“I often think people mislay the entirety of Icarus’s story,” I muse. “To fly too close to the sun melts his waxen wings and plunges him into the sea. But to fly too low wets the wax and brings about the same fate.” 

Antonio glares at me. “You think I risk drowning?”

“I think you fear the sun and forget the sea.” 

He uncrosses his arms. “What do you suggest, then? To show my face again in Illyria would risk the duke’s wrath.” 

I shrug. “You may play at hopelessness, but you return despite the risk. Perhaps I could seek news of Lord Sebastian’s condition and report it to you?” 

Antonio frowns, leaning forward. “What could a servant know of a lord’s heart?”

“Spoken like one who has never served a lord. In my livery, I become invisible. In my station, I become insignificant.” I tap my head knowingly. “But I still have eyes and ears to rival any noble.” 

He settles back against the cave wall. “I see. But this bargain leaves you empty-handed. News of Sebastian in exchange for goods?”

I shake my head. “Antonio, I do not haunt these smuggler’s caves for gold or gin. I visit for stories, and I think the love of a pirate would be a very good story indeed.” 

“Valentine,” Mehmed says from behind me, and I start, having almost forgotten he was here. “The night grows darker. If you wish to return, I caution you leave now.” 

The lantern burns merrily in my hands still, but I do not wish to outstay my welcome. “Of course. Antonio, sir, may we agree to meet again tomorrow night? I shall bring you knews of your lord.”

Antonio’s mouth presses into a flat line, neither smile nor frown. “If it pleases you.” 

“I hope it is not I who will be pleased.” 

The tide laps higher along the beach outside the sea cave. I scramble back along the cliff path and through the woods, slipping back through the halls into my bed undetected. Yet even as the nighttime chill fades from my bones, Antonio’s expression as I left remains burned in my memory. The face of a man who wants, against all odds, to hope, but knows all too well how hope can crush when it is unfulfilled.

***

Curio and I rise earlier than ever come the morning. The duke’s wedding bears down nearer with every hour and there is silverware to be polished, invitations to send, musicians to be hired, and a thousand other tasks to be completed before Orsino takes a wife. Truly, it’s just like Orsino to spend months pining over one woman before proposing to another at the drop of a hat and leaving us scrambling to prepare. 

Well, I rise early. Curio lies abed until I rap relentlessly on his door and he emerges with red hair still matted from sleep and buttons crooked from haste. It is a familiar look, from our shared childhood and the years we have spent in Orsino’s service together. Curio the dreamer in more ways than one and quick, efficient Valentine.

“The priest has been notified and the guest list written,” I say, half-dragging him down the hall. This, too, is familiar. While I may be a night owl, Curio counts himself lucky if his mind unfogs before the noon bell. “Your job is to listen to Klaudia today. I will be busy arranging matters with the bride’s family.” 

Curio blinks sleepily. “But Ces–Viola has no family?”

“A brother, Curio, or did you miss the whole mess with Sir Andrew?” 

He stifles a yawn. “Oh, right.” 

I leave Curio in the kitchen, hoping he can be prodded into doing something useful, and continue on my way in search of Lord Sebastian of Messaline. 

The new steward of Olivia’s estate nods me in at the sight of my ducal livery and points me in the direction of the guardian when I request to speak to the lord of the house.

Sebastian is fencing on the great green lawn, shirtsleeves rolled up beneath the summer sun.

“My lord!” I call, watching him duck and feint at an imaginary opponent. 

He turns at the sound of my voice, wiping sweat from his brow. “My good Valentine! What brings you here?”

“The matter of your sister’s impending nuptials,” I clarify.

Sebastian tosses his equipment carelessly away onto the lawn in the matter of one who spent every moment of his youth confident there would always be someone following behind to clean his messes. “What of her nuptials? I trust they proceed smoothly.” 

“Sir, I wish–” I start, but he continues as if I had not spoken.

“Walk with me a moment, Valentine. The breeze is most refreshing.” He strides into the garden and I trot to keep up. 

“In absence of a father for the bride, the priest wishes to request you, her brother, hand the lady off to her husband.” The priest has requested no such thing yet, of course, but I am not above a white lie.

“Of course.” Sebastian nods, distracted. Sunlight filtered green through the rose trellis plays upon is face and it strikes me how alike in form and face the two siblings are. Yet the similarities go deeper, not simply coloring and the set of a brow, but the purse of his lips and the thoughtful tilt of his head. It could almost be Cesario before me again. He sighs. “I would that my father had lived to see both his children wed, but it seems that blessing is to be withheld.” 

“But surely one can still find delight in the moment, in knowing he watches over you in pride?” I scrutinize Sebastian, seeking any hint of regret or guilt in his face.

He runs a hand through his hair until it sticks up like a hedge-pig’s quills, a gesture startlingly familiar from Cesario. “Indeed. I do hope so. Though…” He trails off.

I say nothing, knowing silence can be far better encouragement to speak than words.

He laughs, but there is no humor in it. “Sometimes I feel myself Odysseus, cast adrift on foreign shores and caught in the spell of a witch. Or that I dreamt and only now find myself slipping towards wakefulness. The lady offered her hand and I took it, but now I wonder–” 

I bite my tongue to hold back a reminder that the lady Olivia is no witch and any spell of delusion all his own doing, and try to keep my face neutral. Lords like Sebastian, I know, never truly seek the confidence or advice of a servant like myself. To him, I am as real as the neat-pruned trellis of roses or his fencing foil–a background, a tool, nothing more than a silent pair of ears. 

Sebastian casts his gaze out as if towards the sea that churns far beyond the garden’s gates. “I wonder how I ever found myself the lord of such beauty,” he finishes weakly. 

I offer a slight bow. “My thanks, Lord Sebastian, for your help. I shall relay your agreement to the priest posthaste.” 

Sebastian blinks, returning to the present. “Of course. Many thanks for your part in ensuring the happiness of a much-beloved sister.” 

I leave him in the garden, taking in the roses with the dazed look of a man unsure if he dreams or wakes. 

***

I have no good reason to linger at Olivia’s estate now that I have heard what I come for, but I find myself wandering aimlessly through her unfamiliar halls anyway. The mourning-black has been removed from mirrors and the curtains tossed open to let in the full breadth of summer sunlight, but the smell of stale dust lingers. It was no long ago that Lady Olivia locked herself away in these halls in mourning for her brother and father, swearing off love and light. With her marriage to Sebastian, mourning has been lifted from her halls, but I think an air of melancholy still imbues her manor. 

I find myself at the door at the end and push it open. Perhaps I can seek out Fabian, a servant in the employ of Olivia and an old friend from the village of my youth, and spare a moment to speak.

But the door leads not to the stairwell to the servant’s quarters and the bustling hidden world below, but a study, empty except for lazy beams of sunlight.

I know I should turn and leave, that if caught I have no excuse for my presence in this inner room of the lady’s, but I take a step inside anyway. For so many months, Olivia was the object of my master’s affections, yet I never learned more of her beyond the monument of grief she showed the world. Perhaps I can find a hint of the woman behind the black veil here, the woman Sebastian now calls his wife.

The desk at the window, chair askew as if Olivia left in a hurry, is piled high with letters. I skim the top ones–mostly congratulations to the lady of the house for recent nuptials and emergence from mourning. 

Off to the side is a half-finished letter, quill left aside the abandoned text, in handwriting so neat and severe it can only belong to Olivia herself.

_ Viola _ , it begins, and I lean to take it in further, my curiosity piqued,

_ Viola, _

_ I know I will never dare send this letter, but I must unburden myself to the page, even if none but myself will read it. I will burn this letter, if I must, but I feel I am a woman possessed and if this be my exorcism, so be it. _

_ Viola, I know you are no servant, no Cesario. I know you are to wed Orsino in a few short day’s time, yet I cannot rest easy with the knowledge of our marriages. _

_ Surely you must know why I sent Malvolio after you with the ring, surely. I cared not for your master’s courtship, but Cesario slipped into my heart with his clever words and a sense of the unknowable. The black cloud of grief lifted for those minutes I entertained you in my halls, and I wished for you to come again. _

_ I know your truth now–your disguise, your heritage, your love for Orsino, and that you are no man at all. Perhaps I knew some of your secrets all along, sensed them without truly knowing, and that is what drew me to you, both lost in our grief. But I cannot shake the joy you brought me those days, cannot dislodge you from my heart. _

_ Viola, I know we are to be sisters by marriage now, that your brother will share my bed even as you become Orsino’s lady. But the love I still feel for you is anything but sisterly. _

_ Viola, I _

And there it cuts off with an angry blob of ink as if left by a heavy, hesitant hand.

I blink, stepping back from the desk.

Well. That is hardly what I expected. It seems Olivia burned bright with passion beneath her cold exterior, passion that has yet to be extinguished. 

I set the stack of letters back on the desk with the practiced hand of a servant who knows far well how to feign the undisturbed, and slip out from the study, silent as a shadow.

It seems that this marriage is a party of two in their discontent.

***

Curio sent to the market for the wedding feast and the priest informed of Sebastian’s role in the ceremony, I find myself adrift through the halls of Orsino’s manor, no pressing task catching my attention. The door to Orsino’s quarters is left ajar and I let myself in, duster and cloth in hand. Orsino may have many virtues as a duke, but cleanliness has never been one. I remove the glasses of wine seeping circled stains onto his desk and bundle dirty clothing aside. The movements are familiar, the work of half a dozen years, and brings me back to the early days of employment–Orsino the young duke thrust into the title by the sudden death of his father, I the newly hired manservant who still mislaid the silverware and had not learned the benefits of being unseen. 

The summer breeze drifts through the half-open window, sweet and cool, and I hum gently to myself, an old ditty about fleeting love. 

In the peace of the room, the casement of the window creaking open is as loud as the clash of blades. I jump, barely stopping myself from dropping Orsino’s letter opener on my foot.

Whirling around, I see not a rogue bandit climbing through the window of the duke’s bedroom, but Cesario. 

Cesario. Not Viola, the noblewoman with her ruffled skirts and measured grace. But Cesario, his hair freed of the complex tangle of pins and veils to hide its shorn length, dressed in Orsino’s cast-off hunting clothing. Cesario, the boy I’d laughed aside and taught how to tie a cravat and now wondered if I’d ever even really known.

“Valentine!” Cesario drops down onto the carpeted floor with a thud and gives me a look like a hart catching sight of a hunting hound.

“Ce–” I open my mouth, then stop before the name exits. 

Cesario crosses his arms and stares me down as if he dares me to comment on his clothing and attempted stealth. “I did not expect you to be in here.”

“Orsino’s room is a shamble.” I place the letter opener back in its proper place on the desk–slowly, as if not to startle a wild animal. “I thought a man should not enter into marriage with his room a pigsty.” 

Cesario laughs. “I believe some of this is my doing.” 

I stand there and twist my hands awkwardly, unsure of what to do.

“Valentine,” Cesario says, suddenly serious. “We were friends, yes? Are we not still?”

“I will not speak a word of this,” I say, catching on.

Cesario frowns. “As a friend or as a servant?”

“Can one truly be both?”

He tips his head slightly, conceding. “I understand. We are of different worlds now. But I would still count you as a friend in Orsino’s household.” 

“Then I you.” I always knew Cesario was hiding something–his suspicious lack of references, the stutter when I asked for his family name, his unfamiliarity with the rough work of servants. I thought perhaps he was a merchant’s son fallen on hard times or a prince’s valet turned out on a moment of bad behavior. I knew he hid something, but I never thought to truly hold it against him, not when he was eager to work and eager to laugh. Unknown, I never let his secret deter my fondness for him. Why should I let his secrets, revealed, stand between us now? Skirts and a noble title do not define him more than a duke’s livery defines me.

Cesario perches on the edge of Orsino’s grand bed, as uncomfortable as if he was a servant still and not the one who shared it. “I rejoiced when reunited with my brother,” he says softly. “I rejoiced when Orsino asked for my hand in marriage.” He looks down at his laced fingers, taking them intently. “And I thought I should rejoice to cast off my men’s guise and live as Viola of Messaline once again. And for a time, I did. But now I wonder if my disguise was no mere falsity, but a reveal of the truth.” He looks up and meets my gaze and I do not see a noble lady, restored, or a servant boy with secrets. I see someone else entirely and, somehow, both as well. The same bold heart, no matter name or guise. “I am Viola of Messaline, once-drowned sister to Sebastian and wife-to-be of Duke Orsino. But sometimes I feel still that I am Cesario, that I would live and love and dress as a man. That I am lord and lady both in my heart.” 

He says nothing, but meets my gaze defiantly, shoulders braced. There is no plea for secrecy or acceptance in his eyes, but a challenge to me. 

“I am a child of the ocean,” I begin slowly, carefully searching for the right words. “I was raised by its ebbs and swells, along the seaweed-draped coast and in the white cathedrals of its cliffs. I know of the tides, of their recession and return. And if it is natural that the sea takes many forms, I do not see why the same could not be for man.” 

“Why, Valentine,” Cesario says, shoulders relaxing from his defensive hunch. “You are quite the poet. I never would have known.” 

“No poet,” I say. “Simply one who sees and understands.” 

Cesario tips his head in gratitude. “Thank you for this moment of confidence, Valentine. Orsino knows little of my recent revelations and I have yet to find the right words. Nor Sebastian and Olivia.” 

_ Olivia. _ Again, I think of her letter and the hidden passion within it. Two marriages, so neat on the surface, and such a tangled current runs beneath them. “And yet you love Orsino still and would take his hand in marriage?”

Cesario nods his head vigorously. “If he would have me, I would dwell at his side for a lifetime. Though…” he trails off. 

I say nothing, letting him turn his thoughts over for a minute.

“Though I still think fondly of my afternoons with Olivia,” he admits. “I wonder, perhaps, if there is a world where I was born identical to my brother in every way, if I could have taken his place at her side.” 

“You think she could not love you as you are?” It slips out without intention.

Cesario eyes me keenly and I wonder, for a moment, if he recognizes that I know far more than I let on. “It is foolish to wonder so, Valentine. She has found happiness with my brother and I love Orsino no less for fond memories of her.”

I incline my head slightly as befits a servant conceding his master. “Of course, my lord.”

Cesario sighs. “Now I believe it is time for me to return to my duties as lady of the house. Would an observant man such as you have any knowledge of the mysteries of a corset?”

We both eye the garment draped across the divan with trepidation.

“Very little,” I say. “But I find much knowledge can be gained from simple trial and error.”

***

Again, I waited until the midnight hour to venture to the limestone cliffs and the smuggler’s cave cradled deep within them. 

I stand shivering before the mouth of the cave until I see lantern-light bobbing out by the shore as Antonio’s rows his skiff into the beach. He drags it up onto the narrow strip of gravel and lashes it to a rock, then turns to me expectantly. “Well?”

I spent the trek from Orsino’s estate turning words over in my mind, so I do not hesitate at the question. “I believe Lord Sebastian’s heart lies uneasy within his breast. He delights at the duke’s upcoming wedding, yet I sensed a shadow crossed his mind when he considered his own marriage.” Of Olivia’s letter and its passion, I say nothing. Let the fruits of my intrusion remain mine alone for now. The lady is entitled to her privacy.

Antonio shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his long coat. “Perhaps he is too recent a bachelor and his new state of wedlock simply weighs heavily upon his mind.” 

“I believe it is the memory of you that weighs heavily upon his mind,” I say. 

“Hmm.” It is too dark for me to read Antonio’s expression, but he sounds unconvinced.

I throw my hands up in the air. “If you remain so dubious about the heart of your lord, why not simply ask him yourself?” 

He shakes his head. “I cannot. The duke forbade me from ever setting foot upon his lands again.”

“That has not stopped you yet.” 

He kicks at the gravel with one foot. “I have acquired a place upon a merchant vessel that sets sail in three days' time.” 

“Antonio the dread sea wolf, a simple sailor now? Has love made you an honest man?”

He chuckles darkly. “Love has made me nothing but a fool.”

I shrug and turn as if to leave. “Well, I believe my work here is at an end, then.”

“Wait!” He reaches out a hand as if to grab me by the shoulder, and I pause. “Valentine…how would you suggest I find Sebastian? I fear the duke’s men will have no mercy for me a second time.” 

I rub my chin as if in thought. “Orsino’s wedding draws near tomorrow, and with it preparations build. The duke has no time to learn the faces of a dozen new servants come to prepare for his nuptials. Simply slip in unnoticed in the guise of a servant and I will direct you to Sebastian. I hardly think he will repay his debt by turning you over to the guards.” 

Antonio’s eyes shine gold in the lantern light. “I…thank you, Valentine. It is I who am in your debt now.”

“Give me no thanks yet, Antonio. Perhaps it is simply in my name and nature to help you so.” I cast my gaze above to the cliffs, where Orsino’s mansion perches above the sea like a falconer upon a hunter’s leather glove. “I must be off before my absence is noted.”

He tips his head in acknowledgement and begins to untie his skiff. “Then I shall hold my thanks until the deed is done, good Valentine. I abate my breath until the wedding day.”

Antonio casts his skiff off into the waves and I pick my way back up the cliff path and through the trees to Orsino’s manor. 

I blow the wick of my lantern out and set it back in the bushes until next month. But before I can gently ease the back door open, it swings open of its own accord. 

I jump back at the movement and the sudden light that floods from the doorway, then realize the figure silhouetted in the frame is all too familiar.

“Valentine,” Curio says accusingly, “What wakes you from bed at such an hour?” 

“I…” I start, desperately grasping for some excuse for my illicit behavior. 

“You dared visit the cliffs on such a dark night?” Curio points at my boots, which are scuffed with telltale white from the limestone. 

“It’s not–” I start.  _ It’s not what you think. _ But of course, I do not know what he thinks, if he knows of the smuggler’s caves and their pirate inhabitant.

“Does a lover tempt you out beneath the waning moon? Some lover, to invite you to break your neck upon the sea rocks.” His voice is bitter.

“Would you not brave the dark and the sea for one you love?”  _ I _ may not be the one tempted to the cliff’s cave in hope of love, but it is certainly easier for him to assume so. 

He sighs and steps aside. “Valentine, you frightened me.” 

“I know the sea cliffs better than most,” I reply, sliding past him. Indeed, many of the childhood summers I spent in them were at his side. “You have no need to worry for me.” 

I remember, suddenly, one summer as children, clambering the cool depths of the sea caves, when I slipped and a growth of barnacles gashed my knee open red. Shock stopped my tears, but Curio cried for me as we limped home, my arm slung across his shoulder and teeth gritted in pain. At the door to my home, he kissed my knee gently like the touch could knit skin back together, and I shivered as if his lips were ocean-cold. I remember the touch now and the faint scar that grew beneath it and faded away at summer’s end as if the brush of lips indeed held healing magic.

Curio, the dreamer, who feels the hurts of others as if they were upon his own skin.

He shrugs. “Logic does not stay the heart.”

“To bed, Curio. We must be well-rested for the wedding tomorrow.” 

“To bed, then.” But I notice he lingers in the hall to watch until my door shuts.

***

The morning of the wedding dawns blue as a bruise. Curio surprises me by rising while I am still abed and knocking on my door.

We do not speak of last night–the limestone dust cleaned from my boots, the lantern returned to its hiding place–yet I catch him watching me when he thinks I am busy. 

Orsino demanded a wedding under the summer sky, so Curio and I spend the morning ferrying a wedding feast into the garden and uneasily eyeing the sky above, which roils with ominous dark clouds, fat with the promise of rain. But the weather holds as Olivia and her entourage arrive, as the musicians tune their instruments, as Father Ivan the priest paces the garden with his Bible in his hands. 

Klaudia and her stirring spoon have ordered me in and out the kitchen a dozen times before the duke has even risen, so I take a moment to rest my weary feet and lean back against a stone bench in the garden corner.

“Hsst, Valentine,” one of the shrubs behind me whispers and I jolt upright, biting back a yelp of surprise.

Antono emerges from the greenery, pulling twigs out of his hair.

“Antonio!” I compose myself, then look him up and down. His long hair is combed and neatly pulled back, black coat and worn leather boots exchanged for a neat vest and crisp white shirt. Neat enough to gather no suspicion, and plain enough that any noble’s eyes would skim over him without a second thought. 

“How fares Lord Sebastian?” he asks, pulling another leaf out of his hair. 

“The duke is not yet wed, Antonio. I bid you wait until the ceremony is complete to find your lord,” I say instead, because  _ making a liberal attempt to single-handedly eat the wedding feast _ is not a particularly appropriate answer to a lovelorn pirate. 

He sighs. “I will do as you bid, good Valentine. But do not leave me waiting overlong while you indulge in wedding festivities.”

“I would not dream of it.” 

I leave Antonio hiding out of sight on the stone bench and return to wedding preparations as just in time to avert a cutlery crisis and direct a lost musician back to his quartet. And not a moment too soon, as the great doors of Orsino’s manor open to reveal Sebastian with Viola on his arm.

The quartet strikes up a sweet melody as Sebastian guides her through the aisle of guests to her waiting husband-to-be and the priest. The bustle of the wedding hushes around me as every busy servant and gossiping noble pauses to take in Viola in her wedding finery–Illyrian poppies crowning her short hair and brocade skirts heavy with gilt and red embroidery. To some, she would be every inch the noble bride, yet I also see something of Cesario in her still–the proud tilt of his chin and the gleam in his eye–lord and lady both despite her trailing skirts. 

Sebastian deposits Viola at the altar with a flourish and takes his seat with Olivia. Even from my vantage point from the back, I see the gentleness in Orsino eyes as he takes her hands in his. 

Father Ivan clears his throat self-importantly to begin the vows. But before he can say so much as a world, the heavens above crack open with a crash of thunder that could be no lesser than the hand of Jove himself. 

The lords and ladies shriek at the sudden downpour and run for cover in a herd of drenched silk and dislodged hair, Viola and Orsino among them. Clutching their instruments, the musicians quickly follow, and even the servants bolt as the sky flashes white with lightning, abandoning the wedding feast the deluge. 

I follow at a run, my coat already soaked and hair hanging in wet strands across my face from the downpour, and follow the wedding-goers to shelter within the manor. 

Sodden chaos reigns, servants and nobles alike soaked from the driving rain milling about leaving muddy footprints and wringing out their damp hair. I slink to the edge of the room and let myself fade away to take in the disorder from a distance.

Father Ivan clutches his bible–miraculously dry–to his chest amidst the disarray. 

Orsino elbows his way through the crowd to the priest to the priest. A sopping wet Viola follows, crown of poppies dislodged and draped in Orsino’s long embroidered coat. 

“The elements themselves cannot stop our union,” Orsino declares, gesturing to Viola with a sweeping gesture. “Father, do not let us be delayed a moment further.” 

Father Ivan nervously clears his throat. “Do you, Duke Orsino, take this gentle lady to–”

“Wait!” Viola steps out in front of the priest, who shuts his mouth with a click. 

“Orsino!” she cries. “I cannot be your lady.” She takes a deep breath. “Not that I do not love you–never would I claim so–but I am your lady only as the moon is bright. Waveringly, changeably. I am lady as much as the moon is bright and lord as much as it dims.” She reaches forth and takes Orsino’s hands in hers. “If my heart is to be yours, dear Orsino, I would that you know all of it. That I loved you as Cesario, and do still, and wish your love in return.” 

“My love…” Orsino lets her hands hang for a moment, as if at a loss for words. “My love, it was fate that delivered you to me upon storm-tossed tides, and who am I to question fate? I love your heart in all, and so must love all its inconstancy and change. Not in spite, but because I would love you wholly, lord or lady or both or neither.” He sweeps her hands to his lips in a kiss filled with more promise and love than any wedding vow. “Father Ivan, let this blessed union be delayed no further. Let me take for wife, and husband, this dear soul.” 

Father Ivan blinks, but does not protest this revelation. “I–yes. Do you, Duke Orsino, take this lady-lord to wed?”

The wedding crowd draws close around the two as Orsino repeats his adoring vows, but I keep to my place in the back. The wedding-goers distracted by the passionate kiss between the newlyweds, I alone notice as the door to the garden opens and a final wet, bedraggled figure slips into the manor hall. 

Antonio, his neatly combed hair now lank with water and vest clinging to his skin with water.

“Antonio!” I hiss, pulling him aside before any guests can wonder at the soaked man appearing in the doorway. “I have not come to fetch you yet! It is not your time.”

“It is raining most mightily outside,” he says bluntly.

“You are a  _ pirate _ ,” I whisper fiercely. “Are you not supposed to be used to water?”

In retort, he shakes his head like a wet dog, droplets flying from his long hair. “Where is Sebastian?” he says, craning his neck to survey the crowd. 

“Sebastian is–” I start to say, prepared to warn him that the last time I saw Viola’s twin brother, he was downing the contents of Orsino’s wine cellar at an ominously fast rate. 

“Antonio?!” says the shocked voice of the lord himself behind my shoulder instead. 

“Sebastian?” If I thought I had seen longing from Antonio that first night in the sea cave, it is nothing to the expression that crosses his face. Surely Icarus could not have looked more so the instant before he began his final descent to the sea, arms outstretched, futile, to embrace the gilded glory of the sun.

I do what I do best and slide out of the way, unnoticeable. 

“Antonio, I–” Sebastian’s voice cracks. He is as wet and rumpled as any wedding guest, yet his eyes shine. “I had thought I might never glimpse your face again.”

“Do not lie the blame for such absence at my feet,” Antonio says snidely. “I am well acquainted with the murk and mold of Duke Orsino’s prisons with little help from you.”

“Prison? I never–” Sebastian gulps. “I never thought your loyalty would drive you into such a trap. My thanks are eternal.”

“Loyalty?” Antonio’s eyes shine with a dangerous edge. “Was it loyalty when I nursed you to health from death’s salt-wracked door? Was it loyalty when I comforted you of grief for your sister every night? Was it loyalty when sat beside you in the dark lest you wake from nightmares alone in the night? Was it loyalty when I let my love spurn me into the territory of my enemy for your sake? My lord, I think you know little of loyalty and even littler of love.” 

“Antonio…” Sebastian runs his hand through his wet hair again. “I seek not to belittle your love–love, now I see, is what you held for me, no loyalty of a servant for his master or for a man for his brother.”

Antonio says nothing, but the hard jut of his chin does not relax.

“Remember,” Sebastian begins softly. “Remember the nights we lay beneath the sky and you taught me of the mysteries of the heavens? Of the gods and monsters frozen in their eternal dance across the sky? You held my hand and pointed up to know the brightest star, steadfast Polaris, the guide to every sailor and shining gem of the cosmos.”

“I remember most well,” Antonio says, his countenance softening. 

“I thought…” Sebastian steadies himself with a breath. “I thought, once I was a pilgrim upon the sea no more, I would need Polaris’ steady guidance no more. But in truth I am adrift still.” He takes a step forward towards Antonio, the mighty pirate laid low by low. “Antonio, I see now that I wrecked still in my soul, that my life is an ocean and I adrift. My love the sea and I tossed upon its whims.” His breath hitches in his throat. “I thought my love for you a tempest and was frightened at its newness, its intensity. But now I see it is the north star and I am lost without its constancy.” 

“Sebastian–” Antonio starts, his face soft, but the lord holds up a hand and does not stop, the tide unleashed and ceaseless.

“Antonio, I fled into the arms of lovely Olivia because I told myself it was her soul I should yearn to know, her face I should brand upon my heart. But I see now that I was a coward, afraid, a drowning man who grabbed at the first sight of land, and now I find myself run aground without my pirate king to guide me.” In one smooth motion that speaks of a million practiced daydreams, Sebastian steps forward and takes Antonio’s cups Antonio’s face between his hands. “Antonio, my love, I feel I never atone enough for your suffering and my ignorance of it. But I ask now, my heart and all, if once again you will let me follow the steady brilliance of Polaris from now until the end of time.” 

And Antonio, salt-worn and steady as a schooner, flushes like a schoolboy in love. “My Sebastian, you know I have no heart to refuse you.”

“My Antonio, know I would never wish you do so.” And surely no kiss between the sea and the sky could be more natural, no dying sunset golden rays as bold, no morning sunrise as passionate and full of hope. 

I look away, cheeks half-flushed at the unvarnished ardor–surely Sebastian’s solitary fencing must have imbued him with some strength, to dip Antonio so low, without dropping him?

Miraculously, Sebastian rights himself with little mishap. “Olivia,” he says breathlessly, as the lady herself has made her way to the front of the crowd. “Olivia, I know I swore you my hand beneath the eye of a priest, but it would pain me more than you can know to keep a lie locked around my heart. I love Antonio, not with the daze dream as I loved you, but with the surety of the tides, and I cannot call myself your lord anymore.”

“Dear Sebastian,” she says softly, twisting her hands together. “You are not the only one who kept a love locked away in your heart. While it was I who offered you my hand, it was the face of another I saw upon you. The face of one I still love.” She turns to the newlyweds, still hand in hand. “Viola, I know you set a course to build a life with Orsino, and I do not begrudge you a life of happiness. But know this: I loved you when I thought you a man and I loved you when I thought you a lady and I love you now, when I know you to be both at heart.” She stops, breathless, and drops her head in shame, hands covering her face.

“Olivia!” Viola stumbles forth in haste, hand still tangled in Orsino’s. “Olivia, gentle lady, feel no shame. The spark you felt between us was not your imagination, and I have dwelt on it even as I promised myself to my lord. If I myself am a lord and lady both, surely I could find love for both in my heart.” 

Olivia drops her hands from her face, something like hope sparking in her eyes. But then her face sobers. “Viola, I would not make an unfaithful of you. It is enough to know my love is not a dream dreamt alone, I have no need to steal you and your happiness from Orsino.” 

Orsino steps forward, hand still in Viola’s. “Olivia, I would have loved you once. If the twists of fate say our love is not to be, I would still not condemn you to dark solitude. If music be love, then love be music, and one shall never have enough of both!” 

One hand for Orsino and one hand for Olivia, Viola reaches forward to raise her lady’s chin to meet her eyes. The kiss is as light as a rose and just as coveted.

Someone sighs dreamily behind me. “And to think we thought this was a day for the simple union of two,” a voice behind me says.

I start, then turn around to find a familiar face at my shoulder. “Curio!” 

He takes in the tableau before us with something between confusion and awe. “It seems that Duke Orsino is not the only one to find love of late.”

“Indeed.”

I follow Curio’s wistful gaze to the pirate and his lord, hands tangled as close as seaman’s rope, and to Olivia poised between the duke and his newly-wed spouse.

“Musicians!” Sebastian cries, flushed and beaming. “Strike up a merry tune, for now is the very hour of love!” 

After but a moment’s hesitation, the musicians segue into a folk tune that lifts the spirits and sends feet tapping and heads swaying across the crowd. 

Curio shakes his head in wonder. “And who would have thought, Antonio the sea wolf returned to find his place at a lord’s side?”

I let a small, secretive smile slip across my face. “I would have thought, perhaps.”

“Valentine!” He turns to me. “Surely you did not know of this?”

I shrug. “It is in my name, perhaps, to facilitate matters of the heart. I did but nudge the sea wolf upon this path and watch it unfold.”

Realization dawns. “The sea caves…the night I found you returning from a visit at the midnight hour. It was no lover you met on the cliffs, was it?”

I scratch the back of my neck awkwardly, disliking to be caught in a lie, “No, Curio. It was Antonio I did rendezvous with at the sea cliffs that night, offering him news of his disappeared lord.”

It is Curio’s turn for heat to rise upon his cheeks. “Valentine…I…I apologize if my questioning was harsh. I worried for your safety on a dark night and, in truth, I…felt something bitter gnaw upon my heart at the thought of a lover who could inspire such devotion.”

In a single moment, white-hot as Jove’s lightning that streaks across the sky in a crack of brilliance, I realize it was not an accusation I heard in Curio’s voice that night, but jealousy.

Oh.  _ Oh. _

Curio, my childhood companion in the sea caves. Curio, with his quiet laugh and smile that rarely crept from hiding and rewarded twice as much as easiness. Curio, who slept late and sang beneath his breath about work and had, perhaps, longed in quiet for longer than I had ever noticed. 

“Valentine…” My name was but a breath, yet I heard it upon his lips like a shout in the crowded room. “I wonder, perhaps, if in this hour of merry love, you would find in your heart a moment to spare a dance?”

I let my gaze wander across the crowd–Sebastian, his hand in Antonio’s as the crowd swirled around the two, steady as stars, Viola passed whirling from smiling Olivia to joyous Orsino, the rain and thunder of the outside world forgotten in a kaleidoscope of music and laughter like a bacchanalia of old. 

“I think I could spare far more than a moment, Curio.”

I take his hand, and it is as light and full of possibility as the gulls above the sea cliffs that take flight to dip and turn above the waves. 

I have spent my life slipping unnoticed through the stories of others. But perhaps, now, it is time to take a step onto the dance floor and write a story of my own. 

**Author's Note:**

> While most of the inspiration for this comes directly from the play, I did some research on the real-life historical Illyria, which was located around modern-day Croatia and Albania. Some examples that made their way into the story:  
> -The sea cave Valentine visits is somewhat inspired by the Haxhi Ali Cave in Albania, which has its own historical stories of pirates and smugglers.  
> -The epithet of "sea wolf" applied to Antonio is inspired by the real-life history of pirates in Albania and the Adriatic Sea.  
> -The names of a few original characters (Pavli, Klaudia, and Ivan) are Croatian or Albanian.  
> -The poppies in Viola's hair are a nod to the national flower of Albania.  
> None of that is necessary to know to read this, obviously, but I used it as inspiration and a way to ground myself in the world of the story a bit!


End file.
